Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/149

Rh They rose at four. The day, heavy with the foretaste of snow, brought excellent business to the box office, Howard learned. He drank a cocktail, ate a bowl of onion soup as he watched Ken devour a great plate of ham and eggs. "An ignoble breakfast," Howard commented. "Fit only for Americans. I never eat ham and eggs any more."

"Aren't you an American?"

"I'm a New Yorker," Howard replied. "And you're still a Texan. Still natural. You have taste in clothes and in ties. Some day when you learn how to do all the New York things to-do, you'll be perfect. Cocktails for tea. Riding in the park. Spats when it rains. And a New York accent. Not to mention more sophistication."

"You do know so much," Ken marvelled.

"Said prettily, my son," Howard smiled. "I pretend. I've been places. Done some things. But I'm essentially a fake. You can depend upon that."

"I like you. And you're not a fake," Ken said.

Howard grinned. "I've been in London quite a lot of late. I've learned the English trick of looking bloody honest. London society, you know, sent Oscar Wilde to jail.'"

"Why did they send him to jail?"

"It's an old, old story."

"I never heard it. What did he do?"

"He tried to be himself. He was, you see, a poet, a worldly-wise philosopher and next to Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci, the world's greatest paederast."

"What's that last?"

"He belonged to the third sex. He was born not to be a man … and was punished for it."